Funny story about how potato became standard “peasant fodder” for everyone from Ireland to Russia…
…where tomatoes were (contrary to popular belief) accepted pretty quickly, potatoes were a little more suspect. The methods of planting and cultivating them were unusual compared to other field crops, even if more efficient. They had an odd taste, or arguably no taste. Plants that most closely resembled them were toxic. The above-ground portion is toxic. There was some debate as to whether or not Christians were “allowed” to eat underground tubers, since no mention of such a thing is made in the Bible. Russian Old Believers still don’t eat potatoes for this reason; the Russians as a whole didn’t really start growing them in earnest until the 1850’s, meaning that the practice of turning potatoes into vodka is actually fairly recent for them.
Fredrick the Great had an ingenious idea for selling 'taters to the masses. He planted potatoes in his royal gardens and stationed soldiers to guard them. People saw the perceived value that he put in the crop, so they would sneak into his garden to steal what they had previously seen as a rubbish plant.
